Lunar Eclipse Dazzles Skywatchers

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Lunar Eclipse Dazzles Skywatchers
A view of the lunar eclipse from Japan's northernmost main island of Hokkaido on Aug. 28, 2007. The Earth's shadow crept across the moon's surface slowly eclipsing it and turning it to shades of orange and red during second total lunar eclipse this year. (Image credit: Rikubetsu Astronomy and Terrestrial Science Museum/AP)

Those who gazed into the darkened skies early Tuesday morningcaught a breathtaking view of a blood-red lunar eclipse.

The second such event of the year gave those along the PacificRim, including California, New Zealand and eastern Australia a view of a totallunar eclipse from start to finish. Inhabitants in the Central U.S. and Canada through New England and even Japan, however, also got a spectacular view.

Earth's full shadow, or umbra, crept over the moon at 4:51 a.m.EDT (1:51 a.m. PDT) and completely covered it by 5:32 EDT (2:52 PDT). The celestialevent ended after sunrise on the East coast and at 4:22 a.m. PDT on the Westcoast.

SPACE.com's SkywatchingColumnist Joe Rao contributed to this report.

Dave Mosher
Former Space.com contributor

Dave Mosher is currently a public relations executive at AST SpaceMobile, which aims to bring mobile broadband internet access to the half of humanity that currently lacks it. Before joining AST SpaceMobile, he was a senior correspondent at Insider and the online director at Popular Science. He has written for several news outlets in addition to Live Science and Space.com, including: Wired.com, National Geographic News, Scientific American, Simons Foundation and Discover Magazine.